


In Babylon

by macha



Series: Georgia on My Mind [7]
Category: Angel: the Series, Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-02-06
Updated: 2008-02-06
Packaged: 2017-10-18 11:46:05
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,862
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/188583
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/macha/pseuds/macha





	In Babylon

### _A02.11.02 The Age of Home: in the hoard, the island._

and the name of the tale is:

### In Babylon

still playing the whore in the temple, Darla?

my game, my rules. can you say the same?

i'd know you anywhere.

it's the same for me. though that's a lot of armament. isn't it heavy?

part of the package.

if you're a dragon. but didn't you used to be someone else?

is it time to play?

but i'm not playing, Angelus. not for a long time now. didn't you ever figure that out?

it's Angel. took me a while to find you.

so i heard. did you really think your key might still fit those doors?

i remember when you were larger than life, brighter than a thousand suns, and twice as deadly.

good. go right on remembering, and you might survive this encounter. but honestly now, don't you miss pretending to be alpha male, now that you're only prey?

look at you. still jonesing for a place on the float of the Whore of Babylon in the apocalypse parade?

maybe a little, from time to time. a good role, for me. but i'm not quite as invested as you are in seeing history... end. feel free to do your very worst though. after all, i might enjoy it.

come to stay?

remember me? i'm the one who walked away. i don't even have a tail to follow back to the beginning, so i can start again.

wish i'd known all along about the wings.

are you wishing for a good undo spell?

i'm more of a doer.

probably just as well; i'm not just sure what you might revert to. you always did love being Prophecy Boy. but i wonder now if you always hated yourself as much as this?

i've given up alleys. they never did much for me.

don't kid yourself, you already have your place reserved.

don't you? i know who i am and you don't even know your name.

really? and what are you then?

is this where i'm supposed to recite the number of the beast?

just remember when you do that even the beast is mine.

i remember a whole lot more than you, dear girl.

don't presume you know me. i made you, and i turned you out. and even then you followed after me. don't forget it.

i don't need anything you've got. not any more. and i don't want anything she's got. i never will. and as for the boy that thinks he's got her, some day i'll pay him off in kind. but tell me, how old are you really, my killer, my sire, my hoyden thief of souls, the mother of my only child?

my my, all those possessives in a row: how very covetous. is that part new? i don't count the minutes like you do. and it's not polite to ask a lady, but you always were a bit of a lout, weren't you? but i'll give you a hint, just for auld lang syne: no matter how far you go back, all the Masters are mine.

and is this where you started?

i come from the desert. are you really surprised? and so did she. before the Tigris and the Euphrates ever met, i was here. or at least, when there was a here.

no one lives that long. you'd look like the Master.

you always assumed that was why he looked like that. didn't i teach you never to assume? you had the balls, boy, but you never were as smart as you thought you were.

i wasn't so bad at planning, i seem to recall.

good reflexes, yes. and you could order in dinner well enough. but luckily i wasn't looking for a male order bride, just for diversion. in the old days, you would have had your time, but only until the harvest.

why are you telling me now?

try thinking about what else you might have got wrong. never too late to start.

did you really know her?

sure. or at least, the prototype. different face, different song. bit on the primitive side. though of course she doesn't remember. knew her? i was her. well, at least, in a nemesis sort of a way. like chalk and cheese. though nobody had invented either one yet.

well, aren't you feeling your oats today? so, the Master's turning wasn't when you first became immortal.

when did you get so slow and torpid, boy? that reptilian brain doesn't do you justice. when you spent time with me, you used to be much quicker on the uptake. in truth, it's not so much that i don't recall my name as that i had so many. the little ritual was all about regeneration. the slayers had a somewhat similar tradition.

and me?

you were just the goat. always, Angelus, the goat. considered a fine destiny, to be sure. but you, you wanted more. meaning. purpose. it was kind of funny. you were so amusing, when you were hungry. i even indulged you in it, just a little. for a while.

Angel. my name is Angel.

well, as indeed it should be. you lost your title to it, though, and you must know you'll never get that back.

so all this time, and nothing? you feel nothing?

do you? i really think all the forgetting must be happening at your end. you're still very young, and we're not even related species any more, and i doubt you've come all this way to discuss the Books of the Dead, or even to play at senet or the game of Ur. this wasn't my tomb, by the way, so you can't do much with that. even if Earth was still where we're standing.

you must be so bored, this incarnation. especially given the insubstantial. Spike had a lot of trouble with that for awhile, he was always grousing about it. but you were always such a material girl, it seems a shame. come with me instead. i seem to recall you never got bored with me. i'll give you a better view.

it's true, you did. but it doesn't matter. not this time. i'm getting ready to cross the lake.

the one and only?

myth is another country, dear one, and we are always there. but this is a dry subject in a dry landscape in an earlier time, and i must soon be going. you've got three minutes left before, well.... what do you want to spend it on?

why did you let me come then?

tying up loose ends, that's all. i just thought perhaps one or the other of us would think of something to say. but failing that, what i should do about you before i go? do you want to die now? you might as well tell me.

and if i did say yes?

i could kill you, if you like. possibly in fact i should. don't worry about the incorporeal; i have my little ways. i wouldn't promise to make it quick, but i'm sure i could manage it in a hundred ways you might even find... ecstatic. part of my raison d'etre, after all. you wouldn't be bored, not even a little.

come try me. let's see what else we've got to say.

next time we meet, perhaps. but meanwhile this is neutral ground, and i prefer to keep my bargains. maybe you never knew that, but that's why i so seldom make them. and i hope you'll recall i never had any contract at all with you. sure, i can do treachery, but i've already done it much too often.

what kind of angel are you?

i could ask you the same, but it's too late for that. death might be kinder than me. but i'm not there any more. and you've become a piece in the endgame. or so Dru tells me. the Girls want you back. and both boys, in fact, might not forgive me. family, there's a subject i could study for a million years and never get much wiser.

since when did you ever act in anyone else's interest?

so you do remember how it really was. you're getting better. but there's a lot you never knew. still, i don't think it matters now. the path i follow was never human, and it was always mine. but then, i wasn't always the snake in the garden either. just like you used to know your sword has always been mine.

i always followed you.

you did indeed. didn't we have our fun? you were made for fire, as long as i've known you. and i did love the view and where it took me. but i came from somewhere else, where my name was written in water. i know the tree you're hanging from, and i am the cauldron you'd like to own. so don't try me, boy. like any dog, you had your day.

i can smell the lie in that one. you're still the wanton.

i can still make you rise to any occasion, you mean? they call it the oldest profession. now you know why. stick to your nature, if you like. or rail against it. is that heart still yours, or did you borrow it to have this dance? it feels generic.

i could take you.

darling, you have no idea how many dragons told me that, back in the day.

i did hear you met one recently, and she kept her head.

she's a different breed. you'll see.

is she aimed at me?

no, my dear. the worlds do not revolve around you. she hardly thinks of you at all, and she's aimed in another direction. time's up. and i owe you nothing now until the end, when you will owe me. or so Dru says. time is a circle. Earth dies. but even so the human race might still go sailing out to change the stars.

and if they do?... you're going with them! and what happens to them all when you get bored?

take my advice; you'd do better to reclaim that soul you love to shed. i don't claim to have one, and there was never much mercy in me either. still for me, the overriding metaphor was never death, never dominion. you never understood that, i think, so let me say it plain. right down to the molecular level, what i deal in, the basic stuff the Slayer deals in is not death, it's life. even in deserts where life cannot go and you can't follow. now, we are both there, and the day has come when we can both acknowledge how very much we are the same.

tell me how fares my boy.

which one? but these days both of them own themselves. i call that a happy ending. but i want to thank you for these sons and daughters i would have never made. they fear nothing, and they are all blessings. that's something you should live to see. for what it's worth, i'm sorry that you don't know that now. till our next meeting, then, sleep tight.


End file.
